Warning: Spoilers below
While the first DLC pack featured some decent content, The Champions’ Ballad DLC Pack promised a ‘new dungeon’ and more story-related elements. After my initial excitement wore off from playing the main Breath of the Wild game and the first DLC Pack, I was cautiously awaiting the second DLC Pack. My core disappointment in the main game stemmed from the game’s “dungeons” which, in my opinion, are paltry in comparison to traditional Zelda dungeons. While I was expecting more of the same types of dungeons in The Champions’ Ballad, I couldn’t help myself hoping that they heard my cries and decided to do a proper dungeon to close out the Expansion Pass content. I was left disappointed once again.
The Champions Ballad starts with players back on the plateau doing a series of combat challenges with a new weapon capable of vanquishing enemies in 1 hit. The catch? Enemies can also kill you in 1 hit. While initially frustrating, I actually enjoyed the change of strategy this new weapon afforded. Once the plateau challenge ends, players will go to a number of new shrines scattered throughout the landscape. There’s actually a decent amount of content and the shrines featured some much improved depth to them. After completing three shrines near each Divine Beast, players will go into the past to view a cutscene that offers a little more character development to Zelda and each of the Champions. Following this, players will have to fight the same boss from each Divine Beast (which felt like a chore for me seeing as how the bosses were one of the low-points I mentioned from the main game). After completing this repeat boss battle, players will receive an upgrade to one of their abilities given to them by the Champions in the main game (Mipha’s Grace, Daruk’s Protection, etc.). Basically it means each of these will recharge faster.
Once players finish all 12 new Shrines, a final ‘Divine Trial’ will open at the Shrine of Resurrection where the whole game began. This is the promised ‘dungeon’ from the early promotional material for the Expansion Pass. While not nearly as big and challenging as I had hoped for, this final dungeon offered a lot of cool puzzles. The interior of the dungeon was still the same aesthetic design from all the other Divine Beasts, but it was a decent send-off for the game. The final boss battle was finally a new boss, but as with other bosses in Breath of the Wild, can be defeated fairly easily with a number of different weapons.
The final reward players receive is the ‘Master Cycle Zero’ which is a motorcycle styled in the ancient Sheikah technology. While the motorcycle certainly looks cool, I found that once I received it, there wasn’t really anything left in the world I wanted to find. I would almost recommend new players complete enough of the Shrines and the Divine Beasts to unlock the DLC Pack 2 content. Then you can travel the world for the remaining Shrines on the Master Cycle Zero–otherwise it’s a bit of a shallow reward. Now, I should mention there are new pieces of armor to find and some new Horse gear so there will be some new things to find on your new ride even if you’ve completed everything.
